Monday, July 25, 2011

This post is going to be a little emotional one for me... It was only a couple of months ago that my friend Tamara (Happy Life, Crafty Wife) and I have decided to open this new challenge blog together. We were sooo excited and had tremendous interest and support. However, as you have probably seen on the Paper Dolls blog announcement, we have decided to shut down this blog as of this Friday. There are still going to be two featured artists, so please still go check them out this week! Sorry about the sudden announcement, but little did we know how managing two blogs and each of us having 3 kids would be soo much on us. So, therefore, this is the final challenge...

(Also, I have left on a vacation this morning - I'm probably on a road somewhere between Calgary and Spokane as you read this... we are headed to Seattle and Vancouver, so I'll be gone til Aug 5th!)

Well, I'm excited to that I was able to work on another pretty flower project - but this time with swirl flowers! The files were provided by Cindy from Creative Pointe, and honestly, I have never made a swirl flowers so I was anxious to try them out!

I wanted to do something different this time - and decided to try an altered project! I decided to make a clipboard with a calendar where you can mark important dates. I took a chipboard clipboard and decorated with her swirl flowers, and embellished it with cut out butterflies, pearl heart pin, doilies, lace and a butterfly button. The background paper is Portrait Collection from Crate Paper, and I used Distrezz-it-all to distress the edges to make it a vintage look. I inked some edges too.

What do you think?

Anyway, it's not really a hard project, but I've never done this sort of thing and was a little anxious to see how it was going to turnout, but I think that it turned out pretty and I may actually use it!

Back to the Distrezz-it-all... no pressure, but this is one amazing machine! It can distress in a matter of seconds to give it a vintage look. It's a little scary - make sure you tuck them away when not in use - but definitely a worthwhile tool to have!

So... head on back to the Paper Dolls blog (actually - the challenge will be hosted by Happy Life, Crafty Wife), download your free challenge freebie and get busy :) I would LOVE to see a great turnout for the last challenge, and there's 4 prizes to be given away! The prizes for this week are FABULOUS! It's worth it to do well!

Friday, July 22, 2011

Hello Everyone! It's another Featured Artist Friday over at the Paper Dolls and I'm excited to be holding it right here on my blog!!! As you have seen in our last post, we are shutting down our Paper Dolls blog next weekend, and we cancelled our subscription to Typepad for August. The month of July has been paid for, but for some reason, the blog subscription has been cancelled immediately and now it looks all wonky and not so pretty anymore! I miss that look already!

Today, we're going to introduce you to someone that has been crafting all their life, but just recently started her endeavor with selling her SVGs. She mixes different media in her work, and the result is amazing - so artistic!

My name is Cindy Pointe and I've been crafting & painting under the "Creative Pointe" label for over 25 years. My "nine-to-five" job is in advertising, which allows me to be somewhat creative during the day, but I feel like there is never enough time for my own artistic endeavors. I live "Up In Northern Michigan" on a beautiful lake in the woods with my hubby of over 28 years and my bulldog Millie (I recently lost my other bulldog, Louie).

What got you into crafting/how did you start your business?

I've crafted my whole life. About 25 years ago I took a stained glass class. The instructor was doing a craft show and asked me to put in some pieces to sell. I was hooked and a business was born. A few years after that, I took a decorative painting class and found a true passion. I got involved in papercrafting when my sister, who was a Stampin' Up demonstrator, paid off a loan in stamps! My first creations were cards, then scrapbooks for the dogs, and now I'm doing multi-media pieces combining my paints and papers. Almost three years ago, I purchased a Cricut and discovered SVGs. This January, I started a blog to share my SVG files and other creative ideas. In May, I joined up with a brand new site, Diecut Designer (http://www.diecutdesigner.com/), and started selling my SVGs. My files are also available at http://www.tkoscraps.com/ and on my blog, http://www.creativepointe.blogspot/.

What inspires you?

I'm inspired by so many things...nature, other artwork, a song. I love to see what other people are creating and then thinking of how I could interpret it.

When do you get to craft and design? Tell us know your other hobbies/interests?

Like just about everyone else, I don't get to create as much as I'd like. I try to get in the studio for a few hours each weekend for some major mess making with paint, paper, etc. During the week, I can work on SVG designs a little bit at a time...while I'm cooking or waiting for a load of laundry. Every spring I host a "Creative Chaos" weekend where I turn my house into a scrapping retreat for five to six girlfriends. In the summer, my sister comes for a week and we craft daily.My other interests include my dog(s)...my studio is decorated in "bulldog"...reading, shopping, and spending time outdoors.

What cutter do you use? and prefer? and besides the cutter and software, what is the one MUST HAVE crafting tool?

I have the same Cricut I started with almost three years ago. When it dies, it will not be replaced (as I would not be able to use Sure Cuts A Lot). I'll wait until I need one to research the next cutter...who knows what they will come out with by then.My "must have" craft item lately has been my "Splat Mat". I love how I can use it with my distress inks and glues. I'm a messy crafter, so I need all the help I can get!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

... and I love it! Yes, I love it, and I wondered why I waited for long! No, I didn't wait... I didn't have time.

I just made a really simple card today, just so I can say that I've USED it! Nothing extravagant, so don't get excited.

I've used the Scallop stitch piercer and decided to create a "streamer" feel and make it into a birthday card. I did three lines across the top of the card and used two colors of floss alternating through each scalloped holes to create this look. I think it's cute the way it turned out.

This cute little beaver is from the Birthday Bash cartidge :)

So, a few tips...
1. Make sure that you're holding upright - none of the corners of the piercer plastic is resting on the paper.
2. Don't attempt this tool without the mat! You need the mat to make nice holes... perhaps a foam mouse pad would work, though :)
2. It helps to have a faint line on your paper where you want the piercer to roll.... I didn't do this, and that's why it's a little crooked.
3. Have consistent pressure and press down quite a bit... the bigger holes it makes, the easier it is to stitch.

So, as I was doing this, my mom looks at me and tells me that it's a neat little gadget, but seems so ancient compared to all the diecutters and embossing machines that I've been using.. yeah, I guess it is back to the old-fashioned style.. It's kinda relaxing to lace through each hole (reminds me of those preschool lacing toys) but I must agree, an electronic piercer, even a machine that would do this for me would make it so much easier. I can't imagine but wonder if that would be one of the next cool gadgets that would come out in the upcoming CHAs. Just imagine - you would be working on a computer with a software, and you can program it to make holes in any stitch style you like (can even download new ones!) and line up the holes perfectly so that it starts and ends in the spot you want it to... can make different sized stitching holes... can detect a drawing and create holes around the graphic (to make the lacing toy!)... oh, the possibilities are endless!

Regardless, this is a fun little gadget - not too expensive, unless you go all out and get all the floss and piercers available on the market, and adds something different to your everyday projects. I have lots of ideas in my head how I would want to use this, so yes, you will see me using more of this tool...

So, onto another thing... I made a really simple card, but I think it's pretty and elegant. This card only uses one graphic Elegant Party Table from Jessica Weible graphics, and did a print and cut on the card. What makes this stand out is that this graphic was printed twice, one serving as the base of the card, and the other, was put through the Silhouette to just cut some of the hanging ball decorations. The table was handcut manually. You can adjust what you want to cut by adjusting the "high pass" button and "threshold" lever.
I added foam dots to the back of them and brought the pieces out, added some bling to it and a ribbon, with a "congratulations" stamp - and voila! In 10 min, I have made a wedding card!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Hey everyone! Today is My Thoughts Exactly Design Team project day! I have few little things I'm going to be sharing with ya all! So, who's all bought their stamps??? If you haven't seen them, please check them out here. If you have purchased it, aren't they fun? Such fun mix and match sayings that you can do, and the August release is going to be just as fun, so stay tuned!

Anyway, for today's project - I decided to take the Under the Sea stamps "fish-ing you a great day" saying and make a little fish bowl bag with it. The bag is actually a round basket from the Fun Favors SVG Templates Kit. I sized it to the maximum size that I can cut on a 12 X 12 Cricut mat (ahhhh! I'm looking for the sheet with my dimensions, and I cannot find it! It was on a little duckie sheet.. and I actually seem to recall my 2 yr old having that in her hands the other day...) and I measured the dimensions (width and height) and used to size my fish bowl from Create-a-Critter cartridge (yes, this is a CRICUT cartridge - it's been a while since I pulled one of these out! I do miss them though.. it is really cute!) I cut my background layer (in tan) and my front layer of my fish bowl in acetate (it does give it the glass bowl look - it's a little hard to see in pics though :( )

I embellished my little basket/bag with fishies from Something Fishy Graphic Set and used my Silhouette to do Print and Cut, and I used glossy accents on the bubble and fishes to give a "wet" look. The handle of this is actually from Rosie's Ribbon Strips (used strip 10, but made it narrower).

Anyway, you're probably wondering where is this awesome stamp??? Well, it's on the back! I wrapped it around with twine, too!

Here's a few more different angles, just because!

Here, you can kind of see this acetate and how the bubbles have the glossy accents on them.

You can fill this little bag with goodies to brighten up someone's day. Here, I filled them up with the goldfish crackers... (You wouldn't believe how hard of a time I had trying to get some of these crackers in my pictures... I place them, and by the time I go behind the camera, they have swam into my daughter's mouth...)

Anyway, here's another two really quick and easy Print and Cut cards using the stamps.

"OWL always love you" "You're TWEET" Awww... The stamps are from The Birds and the Bees set - see, you can even put together conversation with these awesome stamps!

Aren't the graphics cute? This is from Miss Tiina Endless Summer vectors. I LOVE her graphics - it's way too cute and I want them all! I inked the edges, and I placed them using foam adhesives to bring out dimension to the card. The speech bubbles are from all free download (they are graphics, but cut them out on Silhouette).

Here's a side view:

My last card is REALLY simple, but I LOVE these colors and it's such a fun and cheerful card.

See, I told ya it was easy! I immediately fell in love with this graphic set, and had to purchase them! It's Kids and Pool by BabyStarDesign. I did do a little bit of work though... lol... the fin is actually another graphic, so I cut them out, used my Crop-a-dile to make a hole to slip their feet into the fins. This has got to cheer up/encourage someone! The sentiments are from Under the Sea set.

Another view:

The strip is actually a punch from EK Success, and all the twine that I've used in this post is from The Twinery.

Hope that you liked them! My other My Thoughts Exactly DT members also have some projects to share with you all, so please go visit the blog, and from there, you can link to everyone's blogs!

Have a good day, everyone!

Oh, and before I let you go -My Grafico is having a 40% off ENTIRE STORE today only!!! I've been using a LOT of files from there - there's so many cute graphics, versatile SVGs (my lantern, my shoes, my beach pail, my fish bag above... all are from here!), as well as cute digital papers and stamps! It's definitely a great time to stock up!

Monday, July 11, 2011

It's another Monday and hard to believe it's already the middle of July! We haven't had too much great weather to really enjoy the summer weather here, but we have been all relaxing and enjoying not having a regular schedule.

We have decided to go on a little family vacation getaway at the end of July to the first week of August, so we are very excited! (Thus, you will not be seeing too much of me then!) We're driving this time (I live in Calgary, AB Canada) and heading south - crossing the border and hitting Spokane, Seattle and coming up to Vancouver, BC Canada and heading back home. Oh, and my FB fans will probably have seen my exciting news... but I'm meeting Jin and family (Under a Cherry Tree) in Seattle! I can't wait! She has been one of my role models and can't believe I get to actually meet her! (Will definitely have to share some pics with you!)

Anyway, Monday means that there's another new challenge over at Paper Dolls. This weeks challenge freebie file was given to us from Jani at Paper Compulsions. She made some lovely 3D flowers for us (go over to the Paper Dolls blog to download the flowers)

I was wondering how I could use these flowers - really - the flowers are so beautiful by itself, you don't really need anything. BUT I wanted to try something new, and found a stamp that would go if I made a project to go with some garden theme. That's it - I'll do the watering can!

There is a beautiful watering can file over at My Time Mady Easy - so I had to get that. It took me a little bit to figure out the file, but I loved the way it turned out. It would've been even better if I had a double-sided paper for the watering can, so it wouldn't be white inside... but you needed two same papers to make a can, and I didn't have TWO double sided papers that would be appropriate for the look that I was trying to achieve.

Anyway, then I embellished this watering can with Jani's flowers, made a little tag with a sentiment, and added a butterfly.

It's simple, but I think it's pretty!

Here's the tag - sorry about the damage to the flowers and you'll see other places that are kinda "roughed" up... (it's my daughter that tried to grab this thing away from me, and this was the result...) I don't know if you think it's weird, but the location of the tag... I'm not sure I would've placed it where it is, but I had to, because she took a red marker and drew on my can! Arghhhh!! so the tag ended up there - no choice.

Here are the flowers upclose... and the leaves even comes with the file! The flower files are so beautifully made!

Here's the spout - I punched little circles on a paper, backed it with a darker paper to make it look like a "faux" spout...

I also inked the edges and added some lace and ribbons to it to make it more pretty!

I hope that you liked my project, if not, too bad - thanks for visiting me anyway! :) Go back over to the Paper Dolls blog - download your file and get going on a project for the challenge! Two winners will be chosen!

Oh, and by the way, if you haven't picked up the Simple Shapes Super Bundle - you have no more time to waste! The sale is ending TODAY!!! It's regular price is $150 and it's for $49! (and you can use a coupon from your past purchases to even get another 25% off!) You'll be seeing a lot of my project use a file here and there from this bundle - it's so versatile!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

For those of you that don't follow me on Facebook - I just recently got myself a Silhouette. I couldn't resist... People are talking about how clean it cuts, how easy to do the print and cut... and it's so much smaller...how cool it is to have one... so, I guess you can say that I was peer pressured... lol...

Anyway, because I live in Canada, I shipped it to my neighbor's cabin in US and had her bring it back for me. It was exactly a month from the day that I ordered until I had it in my hands. I can't believe I was able to wait that long, knowing how awesome this baby is now..

The day I received it, I made an announcement card....

So, yes, she's my new baby :)

It took me a few days until I was able to fully play with her... and on my third day, I interacted with her and she made some cuts for me that helped me easily make a card!

Funny - it was the print and cut feature that I really wanted, I guess, because I didn't even do a test cut and went straight into this! Looking at eveyone's videos seemed so complicated, but once you are actually doing it, it was really easy!

I was so impressed with how accurate it was able to cut and so fast. The cuts are very clean, too! I fell in love with my baby immediately when I saw what she was able to do! (Hope Brother Cricut won't get jealous...)

So, when I brought these files to be printed on the Silhouette, all you need to do is to lay it on the mat:

Then, you select the objects, and trace around the edges, so the Silhouette will know where to cut it. When you do the preview button, it'll show cutting lines like this:

You then print on your printer WITH registration marks, and then all you need to do is to feed it into Silhouette to cut. The Silhouette will know exactly where to cut by optical sensing (is that a word??) the corner marks. How clever is she???

And, you get to see close up pics of my card! Lucky you! hehe...

I love it! I love this feature. You are definitely going to be seeing more print and cut from me! Okie, dokie - that's it for now! Have a great weekend!

Oh, and my fave company MyGrafico (they sell the lanterns, shoes, the beach pail that I made!) has started an affiliate program! Click here to sign up as an affiliate!

Before I get on with announcing the name of the winner, I had to repick my winner two times!! One was for Bee's Hive, and the other was for Jessica L who both belong on the same DT and I know they have these files! So this was my third try...

...and it's funny - there's only one person that asked my on my FB page, if she had missed her drawing... and the random.org had picked her. I had to count my comments twice!

Friday, July 1, 2011

Whoo-hoo!!! It's July 1st and it's the first day of the My Thoughts Exactly Stamp Release! Alyssa, the owner of this company and 6 of us (the design team) has been so excited to share these cute and amazing stamps with you all today!

First of all, if you haven't been to her blog or her Facebook page, please make sure that you do! Alyssa is super talented and love her clean and modern taste in her projects.

Now, if you happen to stumble across my blog, you're at the very last stop of the amazing blog hop! Please go back to Alyssa's My Thoughts Exactly blog and start there! If you are arriving here from Lenae's blog Sugar Gem, then you're in the right place!

Believe it or not, I actually received these stamps that I used for my projects today! The rest of the design team has had them for a couple of weeks, but thanks to the Canada Post strike, I almost came close to doing my project as a digital image! I was sooo excited to see the actual package in my mail and it did make my life soo much easier :)

I have always loved working with sentiment stamps and thought that it would be a great opportunity to have a chance to get to play with it while being able to inspire people at once. I've also never have worked with stamps with puns and thought it would be really fun and cute! Also, having worked with SVG Cuts for the past 10 months, I wanted something different - wanted to have the ability to use whatever SVG files that I want, so going for a design team for a stamp company made sense to me.

Okay, so onto my project! Because I didn't have my stamps until today, and wasn't guaranteed that I'd get the stamps on time, I had to think of a project that would be flexible to accomodate the sentiment that I was thinking of using. So, I decided to make some party favor treat boxes using the cone shaped box. I've always wanted to make these cone boxes, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity for me. Then, I can attach a tag with the sentiment! Clever of me, I thought :)

Here's my project!

You like??? Just think about how adorable it would be to make these and have them sitting up on your party table!

Some close ups of the front of the boxes. Don't you wonder why I chose these images??? Well, it's because one of the two stamp sets released today is called The Birds and the Bees! AND they are play on words!!!

Here are the tags I put on them! Okay, I'm really loving the picture taking part, so I can't apologize everytime, so just bear with me - lots of pictures ahead... it's now the whole experience part of visiting my blog!

Here's a birdie with the gift! So it makes sense for the tag to say...

This loving birdie is sayin' -

"sweet TWEET!" and the other "a little TWEET" belongs to this birdie:

Now onto the bees!

This little guy is saying:

and the last bee is feeling a little romantic and saying to the other:

"BEE mine!"

and one last pic to show how I wrapped the lovely twine all around the boxes:

All of the embellishment files (the cute bees and the birds) come from the newest set from SVG Attic - Birds and Bees SVG Collection. Aren't they adorable? SVG Attic has been teaming up with My Thoughts Exactly to make SVG collections to perfectly match the stamp sets! So, you don't have to look that much further - get the stamps, get the files from SVG Attic and you're set!

You see - each set has numerous words and sayings that are mix and match to form various puns. For example, with the word BIRD, you can have "Some BIRD-y loves you", "A little BIRD-y told me", "It's your BIRD-day"... get it? Clever! So, instead of you normally buying a stamp set that has these sayings onto one stamp, because they are interchangeable, the possibilities are limitless and wow - you can ever have fun with them! The retail price will be $15 tax and shipping included, except for international customers (additional shipping will apply).

The stamp quality is amazing - it's the photopolymer style, so the images are clean and crisp, and each stamps are perfectly the same height so you can line all the stamps you need on the acrylic block and stamp it all at once and it'll turn out perfect!

Inside these cone boxes (the cone boxes and the tags are from Lettering Delights Valentine Cone Boxes) , the ideal would be to use the cone bags, but since I didn't have them, I scrunched up the bottom of my regular clear bag to fit them into the boxes. Can't tell, right??

All of the patterned paper comes from the K&Co Carolyn Gavin Greenhouse Paper Collection. The twine is from The Twinery and the rest of the solid color cardstock comes from American Crafts.

Now, onto my blog candy! I know that you all liked these super cute birdies and the bees that I used in my project, so..... amazing Jessica from SVG Attic has generously donated one of The Birds and The Bees SVG Collection for me to giveaway on my blog!

All you have to do is to leave a comment right here letting her know how adorable this set is! Please be her follower on her Facebook page and/or her blog as well :) If you aren't a fan of my Facebook page, I'd love for you to join me there as well :)

That's it! Hope you enjoyed my project and thanks for joining us at the blog hop!

If for any reason, you missed one of the stops, here are all the blogs participating in this hop:

Amazing cutter.

Fun digital/cutting files!

Miss Tiina.

My Grafico.

Just a little bit 'bout me.

Well... HELLO! Thank you for stopping by!
I reside in Calgary, AB (Canada) with 3 kids (10, 6 and 4)and a hubby. They keep me busy), REALLY BUSY! But, if I'm lucky - I do sneak away and get some crafting time in! Otherwise, my paper magic happens during the night :)
Feel free to leave me your love here, and feel welcome to use any of my original ideas for your personal use. All I ask is that you give credit appropriately and that you don't copy or re-create any of the artwork posted on here for submissions to contests, publications or for profit. Please link to this blog for any projects/ideas inspired by me. I hope to get to know all of you, and inspire many creative people out there.
Thanks:)